I grew up in the church hearing how important it was to protect my virginity, to save it for marriage. We all knew who was having sex, and in many ways, after the judgment of course, it was fascinating. What teen boy, or girl, is not enamored with sex? What young man or woman is not tempted by it?

Teaching on virginity is good and fine, if you want to set your young people up for failure. But, once that line has been breeched, and the lesson of virginity lost in a moment of passion, where is the teaching on failure? Teaching on virginity is like teaching that it’s wrong to overeat, or to be angry. We all want to overeat, we all want to be angry. These desires are natural to the human condition. And if these things are normal, how much more normal is the natural desire to procreate?!

Think for one moment what it means, according to Scripture and Christian tradition, to be a virgin. Where is the line drawn between those who are and those who are not? Think hard.

Now, try and define what virginity is according to secular standards as defined in pop culture and media. Groping, getting naked, petting, sucking, touching. In a world where, according to a 2005 study by the CDC, 42 percent of teens under the age of 16 have participated in oral sex, sexting one another suggestive and nude self-pictures on their cell phones is really no big deal. Conclusion: virginity ends at penetration.

If you are anything like me, you probably had a difficult time defining what virginity means in the Church versus how it is defined in the world. So, it’s no wonder why our young people are so confused, why they struggle silently with sexual sin at younger and younger ages. And if you are offended reading this, I’m sorry. Not for what I am saying, but that you have lost touch with the horrible struggle that most Christian young men and women face in utter isolation!

Where is the teaching on failure, on picking up the pieces of your life, when you have given in to overeating, to anger…when you have had sex however it may be defined. Is there hope or any chance of going back to where things were before?

Well, the bad news in this, as with most things in the faith, is also the good news. There is no going back, no forgetting, no erasing the past. But, there is hope, there is redemption, and there is freedom from regret.

We MUST redefine our standard of purity in the church! When we preach virginity, teens and twentysomethings hear penetration. And with everything else available these days, that is a pretty easy lesson to accept. The young men and women who take purity vows are the same young men and women who quietly struggle with pornography and covetousness, SO PROUD of themselves for not giving in to sex! There is a disconnect.

Christ preached a message of purity that redefined the standards of sexual wholeness. He said that if a man even looks at a woman lustfully, he has committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28). God is after our hearts. All the law and commandments, a well-defined standard of holiness impossible to attain, are fulfilled in Him. He asks for nothing more than that we love our neighbors as ourselves and love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. This is much harder.

Paul reiterates this in the New Testament when he writes about circumcision of the heart. What the world defines in its terms of holiness or purity is meaningless when it comes to the heart. The Father will know us by how we honor him with our heart.

What does this mean? Looking at porn and penetration are the same. God is after our hearts. We can no longer afford to preach the world’s gold standard of purity, that being a virgin is what God wants from us. I tell you, if he has our hearts, virginity will follow.

It’s not about how far you can go, have gone, or want to go. It’s about how submitted your heart is to the heart of Christ. If you’re looking at porn, you’ve got a problem with sex – it always starts somewhere – and I guarantee you, it is not something you can control on your own. For something that was meant to be shared with “other” God calls us to embrace community for support. If you’re struggling, talk to somebody.

If you choose to submit the secret areas of your life to Christ, to give up your covetous longing for the affection of guys, or your propensity to peer and the property between navel and neck, controlling yourself in a relationship, honoring the opposite sex, and respecting yourself and the gift you have to offer a future spouse will become much easier.

Purity has nothing to do with virginity. Certainly, virginity is a product of purity, but it is not its purpose. God is after our hearts. He will let us rebel, allow us to fail, because it is in the getting up that we draw near to Him and learn to mend our fences against adversity.

Now, I don’t quite understand the evangelical trend to take the things of the world and “redeem” them for good. All the best stuff the world’s got has been taken from the Church and sleezed down, so why should the converse produce anything good? I mean, are we really that proud of Plus1, EquallyYoked, or Amway? Enter the Christian romance novel.

A while back I posted a Tweet about an upcoming book by author Francine Rivers. This was a fake post and had the effect I was going for: most who read it thought me a strange guy for being into such things and moved on. But, for the few who do share my fondness for socially awkward humor, the thought of a love story written around the account of Judah’s sleeping with his daughter-in-law after all his sons were killed by God for practicing a certain ancient child prevention method was pretty ridiculous. So, thank you. My intent was to poke fun at the genre as a whole. For those who were excited at the prospect of the book, Seducing Praise, I apologize for bringing you into my early morning delusion.

Below are some more ideas for Biblically-themed romance novels that just would NOT be marketable…anywhere. Feel free to comment below with your own additions!

Seducing Praise: Tamar and the Sons of Judah
Lot to Love: a Father/Daughter Story
Inner Beauty: The Letdown of Leah’s Wedding Day
Michal’s Dowry: The Price of a Princess

We all enter the awkward process of dating with a certain set of baggage, as diverse as we are, and learning to deal with and process this stuff translates to how we approach the opposite sex. In dealing with the question of dating, or not dating, what is it that we are bringing to the table? I know I have a pretty good idea of what I’m looking for, and when I meet the girl who fits my bill, how well will I really fit hers?

Part of making it through the 20’s as a Christian means that, like me, you have also made the transition from a fantasy faith to one that is more grounded and practical. And, making it through these years unmarried and unattached, it also means that the brokenness I naively carried before, the very intimate shortcomings of my human nature, have had to be trudged through alone, leaving me at times feeling raw and too sensitive for my own good. This is when I feel a little less wild at heart and learn to embrace transparency as it gives way to integrity. And for the women who once found themselves so captivating, these lonely and broken years can often leave you feeling unsure of your worth as a prize to the man for whom you once waited.

But it doesn’t have to be so depressing. Walking through these years offers so much in learning to draw near to Christ in a way most do not allow themselves to experience. Look to Scripture and we find similar stories of men and women, normal and relatively unremarkable, who chose to reach beyond themselves when living seemed so impossible.

From David holding out for years, continuing to honor the vengeful king whose position he was destined to take, to Jacob who deceived his way into a birthright that did not belong to him, and wrestled with God for an identity change, Scripture tells us the stories of ordinary people, struggling through life, who refused to settle.

Jacob’s stolen identity. David’s unfulfilled promise. When current reality does not match where we’re supposed to be, it is so hard to hang on. It is hard to hang on when we feel that we have failed. With failure comes doubt: doubt of the promises of God, doubt of our good standing with Him and those around us…doubt of our worth to accomplish the great things we so long ago dreamed of as children in the faith.

As far as dating, singleness, and all that goes, I think a lot of us just struggle with the issue of valuing our own worth – or at least maybe I do. From something as simple as feeling unaccomplished professionally to having a hard time overcoming mistakes and hurts of the past, relating to the opposite sex becomes a little more…complicated. Life, at this point, does not match up so well to the image of perfection thrown at us in our Christian adolescence. But you know what? I think this is okay. I mean, regardless of the pain and confusion, I would take something real over that any day!

And this, my friends, is when we must throw ourselves back to Scripture.

Christian tradition brings together the accounts of a woman who was so grateful for what Christ had done. While most Protestants do not so easily honor the link between these pieces of the account of Mary Magdalene, this distinction is secondary to how Jesus honored a broken and hurting woman.

Caught in the very act of adultery, this woman was thrown in front of Jesus. Two thousand years later it might be difficult to relate to her, to identify with her shame. When I read this I see a dirtied and crying woman wearing a ripped up women’s toga – clearly not someone from my generation or even close to present day. And yet, how many of us have been in that position, caught in the act?

There she is, lying on the ground, most likely her face turned downward. We know how the story goes from there. When it is all said and done, the Man of Galilee approaches her, raises her up and tells her to sin no more. Not only that, but tradition holds that this woman was so changed that she remained a vital part of Jesus’ inner circle.

The life of Mary Magdalene speaks volumes to this crucial area of life, romance, and future. I think it would be safe to say that she was an alluring woman, most mistresses are! But, thrown out there, completely exposed in her shame, Christ – the only man able to reject her and allow the stoning to begin – draws her near, probably not even an hour after being caught in the act! He sees greatness in her. He sees greatness in all his children, regardless of our past or present struggles and failures.

So here we are, perhaps a bit beat up like Mary Magdalene… Part of growing up is realizing that the fairy tale does not unfold the way we want it to. Life is no pick-your-own-adventure story, but it is an adventure. Embracing it for what it is means lifting our gaze off the ground, away from our shame, and rising as Christ beckons us to draw near. “Go, and sin no more.”

He is after our hearts. Sure, there may be some broken areas in our past, or our present situation may be caving in on itself, but who are we to say that God, the Creator of the universe, is not strong enough to get us through the pain and struggle? And oh, He cares. He cares for us more than we could ever imagine. He knew Mary Magdalene’s past the way He knew that of the woman at the well. He was aware of her hang-ups, brokenness, and weakness. He still chose her despite his knowing all these things about her. He chose to accept her right where she was, with nothing more than a plea for her to sin no more.

He knows our past, our secrets, our struggles and our hurts. And yet, with all these things set in the balance against His eternal perfection, He chooses to accept us right where we are, with nothing but a soft beckon, a plea to sin no more.

Part of learning to identify with His sufferings on the cross, a feat that will perhaps engross the entirety of my life on Earth, is learning to receive His acceptance when I am face-down to the ground, broken, and fixed on my wealth of failure and shame. But, He chooses me every time! The more we learn to rise up and walk with Him on that road to the cross, the more we are able to accept ourselves, and allow ourselves to be accepted by others.

The question is really whether or not our struggle against sin is one worthy of an effort that demands everything of us. Why fight it? And, in the end does it really matter if, positionally, we remain redeemed?

What do you do when you don’t want to sin, when you slip back into things you wanted so badly to give up, to forget? I know what I have done, what I do. It is not that we take the grace of God for granted, somehow nailing Jesus back up on the cross like our human nature would like to think, or like we may have been taught at some weird summer camp. No. If you’re anything like me, it breaks my heart to find myself in places once left behind, to see that the door was not fully closed to a connection from the past. And in this broken-hearted place, where contrition stands juxtaposed to ambition, Christ grieves alongside us and we discover why we fight.

It is in these times of slip back and failure that we need to know why it is so important to flee from evil, to run and not look back. Otherwise, we will find out almost immediately how alluring things once thought evil can be, thereby entangling ourselves in sweet words of deception along a spiraling tumble toward brokenness and spiritual depravity.

Is this heavy yet?

So why fight? Why deny what feels right in order to enshroud ourselves in a seemingly vain attempt at righteous living? But remember this: Our Father does not demand perfection. What He wants is our hearts.

Why? Why stand when everyone else fades away, fall back, throw themselves toward the winds of doubt and disregard for what they know is right?

My whole problem in this great spiritual journey is that every part of me is so deeply rooted in Christ that it nearly impossible to waver long without giving up. My doubts and failings, successes and bulwarked truths are all there. I mean, who would I be to say when things get tough that God is not who I thought He was when I first knew Him? That his promises of hope and restoration have somehow turned to sand? No! God does not change – our circumstances may, and we certainly do, but He does not. The truth we knew in Him long ago remains constant, and in order to live with ourselves there is often a negotiation that takes place to justify why we don’t quite match up to the perfected image of Christ after so many years.

As followers of the Way, we must be rooted in him with our whole selves: doubts, failures, wayward eyes, tender hearts, and dreams alike. They all belong to Him. I think this is what Christ means when He calls us to abide in Him as He abides in us. Yes, I am evil and unworthy of such a holy habitation, but the Father cannot deny His son. He denies no one. He bids us come and follow…beyond that lies the great adventure of learning to let go.

Again, why fight when the world around us embraces the same longings and passions that run so contrary to what Scripture teaches about right living?

At the end of a long battle, when the mingled smell of smoke and blood linger in the air, you ask a soldier why he fought. His answer will be different than it was before the first shot was fired, and even farther removed from what he would tell you about his reasons for enlistment. The answer you find in the battlefield is that he knew he had to stay alive and keep fighting. Sure, there are a myriad of reasons mostly tied to home and country, but at the end of the day he wants to stay alive, to keep fighting so those around him can also finish strong.

Why then, when it comes to spiritual battle, fighting against and resisting sin, do we not recognize the same destruction that giving in has upon our mortal souls? I used to be so naïve, but that was when I was young. I became a Christian and wanted to do what was right because the Bible said so, then I grew up. I learned so well to justify why some things were permissible, how I could get away with this or that and how it didn’t really matter that much because I was the only one affected. I forgot why I needed to fight and spiritual death ensued. But thank God it is never too late!

At the end of the day, I fight not that I can be a good witness, that my family might be proud, or so I don’t hurt God’s feelings. I fight for the simple, primal need to survive.

We were NEVER promised that the Christian life would be easy – not by Christ nor in Scripture. So when it gets hard, why curse God, blaming him for leaving, for our losing faith in Him? This is just another way the enemy mindf**ks the followers of Christ! We talk ourselves out of so many things, so often that we have nothing left and have forgotten how wonderful being with Christ can be.

There is nothing glorious about battle, but it will never compare to staying at home while the enemy ransacks everything we hold dear. However, when we find ourselves, our whole selves, deeply rooted in the truth, why we fight is all to evident: we fight for our very survival, for ours and those around us. We fight that the world might know who God is because we know who He is. Failures, fools, and thieves we may be, but it is in this band of the broken, fellowship of the fallen, that our true nature is discovered.

Yes, we fall, but even a schoolyard fight is not over till one side stays on the ground or decides to run away crying. What we do when we fall determines just where our allegiances lie. Do we get up and keep fighting, or negotiate the pain away and give up on the promise that one day it will get better and we will be better for it?!

We fight so we can pick ourselves up and keep fighting. We fight because it is better to fight alone that to find ourselves in painless, spiritual isolation. We fight because there is One greater who stands behind us, beside us, and comforts our wounds regardless of whether we sense His touch or not. We fight because that is who we are, and in doing so we embrace a nature deeper than the sin that ensnares us.

“And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no afternoon athletic contest we’ll walk away from and forget about it a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.”

I have set out many times to take on yearly Bible plans. Granted, I have read the Bible several times but for the past few years I’ve noticed that I tend to stick to my favorite areas, like Paul’s epistles…or Paul’s epistles. Breaking my trend and reading the Good Book from cover to cover in one year is an idea that has always appealed to me.

There was the specialized Daily Bible that was popular in the early 90’s. I tried it, but was still in junior high and had not yet discovered my passion for reading; then came high school and the year-long Chronological Bible. As it turned out, for me anyway, it was a cool idea but required too much personal discipline. I got bogged down in Numbers, and eventually put it back on the shelf for good.

When I was in YWAM, there was yet another 365-day plan to read through the Bible. Each day had a reading, a prayer focus for a different societal sphere of influence (e.g. government, education, business, etc.), and each week highlighted a different unreached people group for further prayer. It was set up like a journal so you could write thoughts and prayers throughout the year. While the YWAM prayer journal was a great tool for some, it proved too complicated for me. After a couple weeks of falling behind and promising myself I’d read ten chapters a day to catch up, I stopped.

So last night NCC had a GREAT worship service and launched the reading plan. They’re calling it “From Garden to City.” What really appeals to me about this plan, over any gimmicky one I’ve tried before, is that it contains one crucial element the others did not: community. We are reading together. The more I grow as a Christian, the more I understand that my faith is not built on my own efforts so much as it is fortified through fellowship with other believers.

For more information on National Community Church’s Bible reading plan, you can visit the reading plan’s website.

This is a repost, in French, of a previous blog entitled, “Sick With Sin, Grace Abounds.”

Je conduisais la voiture l’autre jour dans la campagne qui entoure mon village, une chose que j’aime bien faire pour laisser couler mes pensées – c’est SI bon pour ça, cela me donne l’occasion de me dégager et de réfléchir à la vie. Mes pensées ont continué à venir et couler avant de s’accrocher sur pas mal de poubelles enterrées au fond du lit de la rivière. Ah oui, des péchés passés, des erreurs, et des choses que j’aurais préféré oublier, feindre qu’elles ne se sont jamais passées. Nous, avons tous ces choses, ces « régions » de nos vies, et bien que guéries elles restent comme des blessures béantes. il me semble que ces choses nous reviennent avec la vitesse et la puissance d’un grand camion ! Mais, peut être n’est-ce qu’une illusion. Souvent attiré par une chose familière, une vue, un bruit, ou une odeur, ces petits retours en arrière fonts des merveilles pour amortir ce qui reste de la journée, et c’est exactement ce qui m’est arrivé sur la route à la maison.

Incroyable ! Ma pensée s’est fixée sur quelques souvenirs, des choses qui j’ai confessées à Dieu et aux autres, mais dont le souvenir me fait toujours honte avec des regrets. La seule erreur que je n’ai pas commise, assis dans la voiture, c’est de croire de façon ou d’autre que je suis la seule personne qui connaît ce rappel de mes fautes. Ah, non, elles sont clairement câblées dans l’âme humaine ! Et bien que les choses sur lesquelles ma pensée s’est fixée soient couvertes par la grâce de Dieu, par le sacrifice fait par Christ sur la croix, je me suis trouvé avec le sentiment d’avoir échoué pour n’avoir jamais ressenti le besoin de grâce.

« Je suis stupide, je ne peux pas croire que j’ai pu faire ça, » je me suis dit en me persuadant faussement moi-même pour m’aider, de façon ou d’autre, à dépasser mon passé et continuer avec la vie, même si cette solution ne dure qu’un moment. Pendant que je continuais j’ai eu le sentiment qu’il y avait quelque chose qui n’allait pas. Toutes ces choses négatives et ces sentiments ont bien confirmé comment je le ressentais moi-même, mais est-ce que c’est comme cela que Dieu me voit ? Et puis, j’ai été saisi! Si Jésus m’a pardonné, si il a oublié le fait que j’étais tombé, que je continue de tomber, et que je tomberai encore (à moins que je cesse d’être humain), alors pourquoi je me bats pour les choses qui ne me servent même pas dans mon identité selon Dieu ?

Dieu sait qu’on est malade du péché. C’est un virus que ses enfants ont contracté à la chute. Et bien que Christ soit venu pour amener la vie, la grâce et la paix, on doit toujours traiter avec les effets de cette maladie. Par la puissance du Saint Esprit et le communauté des croyants nous pouvons avoir la victoire sur nos échecs et les compromis, mais le péché restera le compagnon fâcheux jusqu’au jour ou nos corps ne fonctionneront plus et que la vie sur la terre sera terminée. Ça, c’est la réalité. Aucune quantité de jeux d’esprit ou de pensées positives ne peut changer ceci. On trouve la paix quand on se jette au pied de la croix. Cet acte seul change la vie, et alors qu’on ne va peut-être pas glisser vers les mêmes écueils qu’auparavant, nous serons confrontés à nouveau avec ce parasite qu’est le péché qu’on le veuille où non.

Nous sommes malades du péché. Mais notre Père le comprend.

Petit j’étais souvent malade avec une forme moins sévère de coqueluche, que mes parents appelaient « la croupe ». Je toussais comme un phoque et je respirais avec difficulté. C’était effrayant. C’était une maladie enfantine, et le médecin a avisé mes parents comment me traiter à la maison. Mon souvenir le plus ancien, resté au fond de ma mémoire, est une de ces longues nuits l quand petit Timmy était éveillé, toussant et pleurant parce qu’il avait peur et ne pouvait pas respirer. Cette nuit là, mes parents essayaient de me calmer –avec la peur et l’angoisse, les problèmes de respiration empiraient. C’est ce souvenir qui est resté au plus profond de ma mémoire Je souffrais à cause d’une de ces toux effrayantes. Mon père se tenait proche de moi, me laissant écouter sa respiration, sentir son cœur battre avec mon visage bien planté contre sa poitrine. Il m’a emmené dehors pour respirer l’air frais de minuit, et sous un ciel illuminé d’étoiles, il me parlait avec une voix aux tonalités basses et calmantes.

Il ne m’a pas reproché de lui faire passer toute la nuit éveillé, ou de faire trop de bruit à cause de ma toux. Non, il me tenait fermement, me parlait des bonnes choses, et il me montrait les constellations d’étoiles au-dessus, il m’enseignait des choses toujours si loin, et comment me tenir silencieux. Et ceci, mes amis, c’est EXACTEMENT ce que le Père fait pour nous. Il ne nous réprimande pas d’être malade. Tous simplement : il nous tient. Il a pour nous des cris de joie, il nous parle des choses toujours si loin. Pourquoi un père aimant vraiment ses enfants les réprimanderaient-ils pour une maladie contractée de naissance ? Dieu sait que le traitement de cette maladie suit un horaire fixe, il connaît la mesure de nos jours et quand le plein rétablissement du péché viendra et nous le verrons dans toute sa plénitude. Jusqu’à ce moment-là, nous suivons un traitement mit devant nous il y a deux milles ans !

Donc pourquoi tous ce propos négatifs ? Pourquoi me dénigrerais-je pour le passé, et le présent même, quand tout cela est déjà pardonné et couvert par la grâce de Dieu ? Es-ce que c’est bien du fait que je ressens que je mérite cela pour être tombé dans n’importe quel domaine du péché ? C’est bien que je prenne le rôle du mari abusif que de femme battue ? Je me traite si mal parce que je crois que les temps difficiles sont ma propre faute, et puis je me tourne pour accepter l’abus car je m’en trouve digne ? Est-ce que je crois vraiment que je mérite un tel abus verbal ? Est-ce que je suis si incapable, ou indisposé, pour accepter la grâce de Dieu que je pense qu’il faut mériter pour me traiter si mal? Il ne me parle pas comme ça, alors pourquoi je le fais moi ? Ce n’est pas juste, c’est pourtant une réaction humaine à laquelle il est difficile d’échapper. Et c’est à ce moment là qu’intervient la véritable existence de la foi. Je ne crois pas que c’est la profondeur auquel un homme tombe qui le définit, ou même la hauteur à laquelle il peut rebondir après son échec. Plutôt, comment est-ce qu’il intègre l’expérience pour le reste de sa vie ? Qu’est-ce qui définit son voyage ?

Pensées ?

Enfin, frères, nourrissez vos pensées de tout ce qui est vrai, noble, juste, pur, digne d’amour ou d’approbation, de tout ce qui mérite respect et louange.
Philippiens 4:8

Don’t get me wrong. I pray all the time – I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have that trust that God is ever-present and actually concerns himself with the smallness of our lives. So when it came to reading the Bible, I would give myself the freedom not to read in order to break the routine, just to make sure I wasn’t doing it out of guilt or obligation. But, as these things usually go, I have been growing more in this area and a good friend recently challenged me to basically get over myself and start studying it again. Good advice, and definitely time.

In any case, I’m not perfect, but I don’t think anyone really has a corner on the market of personal devotional habits, as they are simply that: personal. This week and last I have slowly been creeping through Ephesians, usually reading a chapter at a time and taking some time to reflect on it.

This morning when I was reading the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, written while he was in prison, a couple parts jumped out at me and really grated against my lesser-developed areas of spirituality. Namely, dude’s writing from prison and reminding those in Ephesus to be “completely humble and gentle,” “patient,” and to “bear with one another in love” (v. 2).

I think back to high school, and even some of college, and tend to hold that up as a time that I was easily more humble than I am now. I am pretty well in touch with the evil part of myself these days and hope I am the first to admit it when I fall short of perfection, which is all the time. But, as much as I can hold up the past as a time of greater purity, more steadfastly devoted to the mission of Christianity, I think it would be wrong. If I knew then what I know now, I honestly would not have understood where 2009 Tim was coming from. I wasn’t so humble as I was just naïve, naïve about the world around me and unaware of my wearing, thinning humanity caught in the middle of a very spiritual tug-of-war between good and evil. I looked humble, felt humble, and even had that dumb humble look, but as I read Paul’s words I now know that humility comes at a cost.

And there it is. The human factor in spirituality is constantly causing us to look back upon better, easier, simpler days. I mean, if I live in the memory of the past, and how I perceive it, I don’t have to face the troubles I find myself caught up in today. We do it in the church, at work, in marriage and family, and in the quiet of our own lives, because reality is often to hard, or just too complicated, to face. But Paul is reminding us to be humble, and that church unity depends upon our individual willingness to open up to and lean upon one another.

This openness, this decision to live in transparency and to accept one another and ourselves, goes against every grain of humanity. And although our bodies may reject the implantation of God’s goodness and grace, we must hang on for they are life to our self-consuming and slowly decaying bodies.

So with this in mind as I read through the chapter today, the whole “time to grow” challenge I have been coming to as I pursue God in my later 20’s really comes to a head. I look to the past and cannot help but be thankful even for the young naïveté I now recognize. For as much as it frustrates me that I cannot yell back and tell “young Tim” to avoid this obstacle, or to pursue that area of growth, or even to bet on the Red Sox in the 2004 World Series, I cannot. I am the sum of my experiences, both good and bad, and even the darkest of nights has found a purpose and a place in the strength I know today.

For all of us who identify as Christians (and if you’re a “Christ-follower,” stop being so trendy and humbly exude some unity – you’re a Christian), learning not only to face the past, but to embrace it MUST be the defining process of true and lasting growth and maturity. This is the type of believer outsiders want to see, need to see. And this, I believe, is what will mark ours and generations to follow as one step closer to our purpose as the body of Christ than our Evangelical forbearers were able to witness. It is time for a change.

I find myself challenged to embrace humility, to think kindly upon others, and to remember that being a Christian is by its very definition not so trendy – and that that is okay.

He preached wherever people would listen, wherever a forum was given. When in the streets he gathered the attention of passersby with miracles and his unique riddle-speak about God and his coming kingdom. I want to be like Jesus, and I do not know one person, committed Christian or ardent atheist, who does not aspire at some level to emulate this curious Hebrew man who left an indelible mark on human history. On this, we can all agree.

I think it’s pretty easy to say that I have been frustrated with the church at large the past few years. I think Evangelicals have grown accustomed to their position of power and have too greatly used their influence in politics in an attempt to change the hearts and minds of an unwilling public. Two largely divisive issues that come to mind are those of abortion and homosexuality. Granted, as Americans, the church deserves it rightful voice in politics, and it would be a sad day should we ever remove ourselves from that national conversation. However, we let ourselves be scared into believing in a future where abortions are as common as going to the grocery store, where pastors are forced to perform marriages for gay couples.

We embarked down a long and lonely road that separated us from the society in which we are meant to live, and attempted to protect ourselves and shelter our children at all costs. Well, these political debates are largely at a standstill, but this détente has brought with it a rift of ruptured relationships and soured the sweetness of the message of a loving and compassionate Savior.

I wish I could say I had nothing to do with this move toward the separation of church and society. I wasn’t standing shoulder-to-shoulder with any proponents of the Christian right, but my inability to see the movement’s effects, my inaction to reach beyond a political solution, makes me just as culpable. How women who have had abortions or gay couples would ever feel welcomed into the church, after all they have had to endure as a result of our desperate attempt to hold onto a world we know while a new one continues to emerge around us, I do not know.

But for those who dare enter the mess left behind, much is to be gained; for it is in this place that Christ is walking once again among us.

Long since before I was born, the church has been praying for revival, for Holy Spirit to once again sweep us up off our feet, shake us silly, and bring in the lost. Sadly, for the old-timers, this is just not the way God is moving anymore. And why should these great “movements” always happen in the same way if society is constantly changing?! I tell you what, if a big revival came tomorrow, the kind that the church has been praying for, I would probably skip it. The idea that if we pray hard enough God will “show up” and people will magically “get saved” is stupid. I’m tired of it, and if it did happen it would only serve to pound the final nail into the coffin of the church’s relevance to society. God forbid we actually open up about our faith to our neighbors in a genuine way that doesn’t make us sound freaky!

I’m not saying that people can’t change, or that God cannot soften the hardened hearts of humanity. But, I do think that we as Christians have a lot of bridge-building to do because, frankly, we are to blame for a lot of those hardened hearts – and this KILLS me!

Now, when it comes to a perverted form of the Gospel that really distorts Christ, I used to poke fun at the Christians I saw on television, or whose self-help, nearly-devoid-of-Christ books I always pass by in the bookstore. And yet, after meeting some of these people and really taking a look at the level of their commitment to the faith, it is IMPOSSIBLE to deny that they are simply doing the best they can with what they know. Accuse them of propagating a distorted view of Christ and I find myself guilty of the same thing! Even the most extreme examples of them will most likely be considered Christian mystics in several hundred years – and even the mystics have a place among the Christian greats.

These are all internal issues, and there have been some faint glimmers of hope in recent years. We are seeing great moves in the area of inter-denominational Christian fellowship. Where we once feared the potential mess that grace and freedom might create, we have learned that community is, in and of itself, a very messy thing and our lives have turned from legalism and embraced something better, more genuine. And there has even been movement in being able to address the topics of sexual brokenness and healing for men and women struggling with memories of past abortions or unwanted homosexuality.

And yet, as we begin to step out into this new frontier, embracing a culture from which we had so well sheltered ourselves, there are those who are unwilling to make the change. Enter the street preachers…if you can call them that.

First off, let me make it clear that I am not dogging on those who preach on street corners in other countries. In places I have been, like Hong Kong and Kampala, street preaching is where many successful pastors converted and brought together the original members of their churches. Other places in the West, like preacher’s corner in Hyde Park, London, is a place where anyone can share whatever is on his or her mind. I myself engaged in street preaching as part of an outreach with YWAM in Mali, West Africa. Every night for two and a half months, two Swiss girls, one Norwegian guy, six Frenchies, and me sang and danced our guts out and shared our love for Christ. In a country where most people do not have electricity and have never seen a flush toilet, let alone a television, social conversation takes place in the streets! But here in America, where the storefront has moved online, such a method of gathering converts is just not as viable. Plus, people just don’t care to pull their car over to stop and listen, especially when what they hear are hateful words shouted through a megaphone – and this, my friends, is not preaching.

Jesus engaged society in a relevant way. The shouters I have seen cropping up around Seattle and other parts of the country do not speak about the glory of the kingdom to come, or the goodness of loving God and one’s fellow man. Instead, they spew a litany of hate that wounds the heart of God and tarnishes the work the church is trying to do. It only fortifies the fence we are trying to remove between society and us.

Maybe I’m the only one to have come in contact with any of these folks, but honestly, I am sure I am not alone. There is a group in Seattle that calls itself “Open Air Seattle.” They picket big events holding signs that read things like, “Repent or Perish,” and “UR Guilty B4 God!” Their “pastor,” whose name is not clearly visible on the website, writes things in his blog like, “When I hear ‘God is love,’ I cringe.”

These are not your typical, run-of-the-mill fanatics who are an embarrassment to sit next to on Sundays. Rather, these are the types of people who view me and other Christians as hell-bound heathens because we have chosen a watered-down non-gospel devoid of God’s wrath.

They have altogether removed themselves from any sort of dialogue, reverting to name-calling and the dismissal of any disagreement whatsoever. When they are shouted at, they consider it persecution and further spread their hate. When engaged by Christians, they choose not to listen, preferring to downgrade my faith because I don’t have the balls to bellow the Bible like they do. Their faith is substantiated by the work of making a fool of themselves for “Christ” on the streets, when all they are is foolish because they Christ whose message they rape is not the gentle, loving man whose words have changed my life.

Without the opportunity to experience God’s grace and forgiveness in my own life, perhaps I would be among them, publicly flagellating myself to cover up the extreme guilt and shame of my past. I mean, it makes sense, right? Grace is so hard to swallow because it requires NOTHING of myself and EVERYTHING of God. It feels so contrary to the human experience because IT IS contrary to everything natural law teaches us: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Not with Christ!

These men and women, sadly, do not know Christ. I am not saying this with a grain of salt, balancing my former statement with “well, not in the way we know Christ.” NO, they do not know him as he truly is, and they have put themselves in the most dangerous position of all because they are completely unwilling to listen to any and every conversation that threatens to unravel the false religion they have built around the shell of a great man. They are no better than the merchants in the temple, or priests selling indulgences, and deserve to have a good whipping for the great abuse they have committed against the gospel, or good news, of Christ!

One of the members of this “Open Air Seattle” group used to attend my church off and on. His wife an children were faithful churchgoers, both daughters would smile and laugh in the Sunday morning kids program and his wife found shelter and friends in the church, a safe place far removed from the distant and abusive husband she knew at home. When I was younger, her husband called our house one night. He was drunk and wanted to talk to my dad. My parents were out for the night and I told him that. He followed by telling me he was “shitfaced” and threatening, “Do you know what I do to people when I get drunk?” I hung up and dialed 9-1-1.

For years he was in and out of church, clearly struggling with alcoholism. I am the last person to judge someone because of personal struggles, but when he “came back” to church the last time, something was different. He had gotten involved with a group of people, the beginnings of this Open Air Seattle group. True to the pattern I had observed in the ten years I knew him, he eventually manipulated his wife to the point that she was forced to leave our church, the only real safe and consistent place she had known for so many years. She is now preaching alongside him and their young daughter, choosing an awkward and forced public pulpit of piety because it better fits into the human equation, and avoids the messy path of grace and freedom. Where is the change?

It just kills me that this family has been so destroyed by this false religion that touts itself as Christianity yet is anything but. This street preaching movement smacks more of the Taliban than it does even of old-school Christianity. I certainly don’t remember any great conversion stories by anyone holding signs of God’s impending wrath, at least post c. 33 AD!

I feel for them the same way I felt for the dwarves in C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle. In the final segment of The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis writes of that world’s “End of Days.” The form of Aslan had been distorted and watered down into something it was not, and his true followers thrown into a darkened barn to face his wrath and a painful death.

When the human children and some other Narnians were thrown into the barn they remained in Narnia. It was the same landscape, but newer, fresher, cleaner, and untouched. The sun shone brightly overhead and all that remained of the darkened barn and tattered Narnia whence they had just stepped was a large barn door with weathered boards, standing there in the middle of a vast and endless terrain. The angry God they were told they would find was never there. Eventually they were greeted by the true Aslan and ran with him to embrace the life they were promised. And yet, there was that group of dwarves who could not see past the barn…

When the dwarves entered the barn they huddled in the dark against the wall. The others, who saw only light and freedom tried to tell them it was okay, that they were free and no longer slaves to the pain and wrath they expected. But, the dwarves limited themselves to their own smallness and refused to budge. No matter how hard the others tried to convince the dwarves they were indeed free, the dwarves refused to budge, even mocking the others for thinking that there might be more than a small barn and vengeful creature called God.

Jesus, the friend of sinners, holds out his hand, calling us to run “farther up and farther in,” to leave behind the shame and pain of the past, to let it go for something greater. But this? This is Christianity.

Registering these kids for sponsorship is one of the most incredible things I have been privileged to do in my lifetime. Seeing first-hand the light of hope that appears in the eyes of children whose lives were once destined to destitution is something not easily described. But even so, there is another whole class of children within these forgotten, unaccountable orphans and orphans of poverty. What use is a full stomach and education that reaches beyond primary school if society has no place to allow for a child’s success?

Kato Grace gives a thumbs up to the camera during a recent ICN excursion to his hometown of Kassanda.

Special needs kids, God’s gift to parents in America, are often seen as nothing more than an evil scourge, a curse, or punishment from God when they are born to parents in the developing world. These children can receive all the support in the world, but for them to break through and impact society – or to simply have a place within its construct – is going to take a lot of work, work ICN hopes its graduates will one day accomplish.

After registering what seemed an endless line of children who needed sponsors, one of ICN’s field workers, Mr. Hannington, brought me “a very special boy” named Kato Grace. “Kato” is a twin name in Uganda, and I learned that his brother had died at birth and Kato Grace was alone and unable to go to school. He was also severely deformed. His chest protruded out in a sort of bell shape and his growth was largely stunted. Although he was extremely small, he did not have the tell-tale signs of dwarfism, so I knew it was something different. He actually reminded me of the actor who played in the movie Simon Birch, who had a condition called Morquio Syndrome, a rare enzyme disorder that affects the circulatory, muscular and skeletal systems. Being that Uganda does not have a specialist in childhood genetic disorders, Kato Grace was not able to get a diagnosis or treatment regimen. What I did know, however, is that children with Morquio Syndrome rarely make it into their early 20’s.

What can you offer a child like Kato Grace? What can you offer a child who leads a life that is not only completely unaccounted for, i.e. an orphan, but who is even forgotten and ignored amongst his peers?

When Hannington introduced Kato Grace to me, I knew we had found someone special, and I was determined to get the boy a sponsor – medical issues or not, I could tell he was bright and deserved to be in school. If nothing more, his smile melted the heart of everyone on our team.

After returning from the outreach in 2006, I wrote an article for an ICN newsletter that went out to our then meager, but faithful, list of sponsors and supporters. The article featured Kato Grace and called on sponsors to talk to their friends about sponsoring this deserving child. He was snatched up for sponsorship and was able to go to school and receive the love and care he needed.

You see, in Uganda and most of the developing world there are no special education programs, no social welfare. Children born with special needs – if their parents feed them and allow them to grow up – are destined to a life of lying on the sidewalk, dirty, hopeless, and hand open. This is the extent of social assistance for most of the world in which we live today.

Because he found a sponsor, Kato Grace lived with the knowledge that life would never come to that for him. He, along with a handful of others, is one of my favorite kids in ICN’s sponsorship program whom I look forward to seeing on future visits. He quickly became one of ICN’s success stories. Kato Grace has met more Americans and foreigners than most of his peers. He is a sweet boy and finds his way into the hearts of everyone who visits that Kassanda school, deep in the bush of southern Uganda. In fact, whenever a team visits, I think he spends more time in people’s arms than he does walking on the ground. Just a GREAT kid! And then, Friday afternoon, Jennie Windham, ICN’s sponsorship director, forwards me an email from Madam Hope, sponsorship coordinator in Uganda and superintendent of ICN’s schools:

Today I have been moving a lot, this boy of Kassanda called Kato Grace with a big growth at the back and at the chest (I don’t know how it is called) They called me two days back, he was very very sick and went to coma, I rushed him to hospital and in every hospital I went they were refusing to handle the case and finally we went to the biggest hospital (Government Hospital Mulago) and was put on oxygen for two days but unfortunately today he has died and I have struggled a lot to get the body and transport it to Kassanda [where] he will be buried tomorrow. May his soul rest in peace. Inform the sponsor, I have loved the poor boy up to death.

Where is there room for a child in a society whose doctors, among the nation’s most educated, refuse to help him? When I first heard the news, I felt pretty hopeless. Sure, I know his life was better because of sponsorship…but really, that is the whole point of it. His life WAS better because of sponsorship. He may not have gone on to university and been a force of change in Ugandan society, but he was loved by his classmates. He had a seat at their table, the very children who will one day have a seat in government and other spheres of influence. The friends of Kato Grace will remember his smile and perseverance, and because they loved him they will always have a place for others like him.

Kato Grace could have died a nameless and meaningless death, but he did not. He died knowing that he was loved, that he was not alone. And for this, sponsorship gave value to a life that would have otherwise come and gone without anyone taking notice.

If you would like to sponsor a child, ICN has so many available. It is a reputable, grassroots organization that I was a part of pioneering five years ago. You can browse through bios of some of the kids on icnchildren.net – kids who are waiting for someone to step into their lives, just like someone did for Kato Grace.

And Kato Grace, we’ll miss you, buddy!

When I was twelve-years-old, maybe thirteen, I signed up for an inner-tubing excursion down the Green River, during a week at family camp. None of my friends from church came, except for a few girls I thought were pretty (so I decided to keep my shirt on…oh, tough age). The day of the big outing we all hopped into a bus and drove about thirty minutes, unloaded the tubes and hopped in the river. Never having done this before, I was quietly nervous and pretended to be polite by letting everyone else jump in the river ahead of me. I watched as they stepped into the calmness of the shallows and floated away, making this foreign thing seem so simple, and rather fashionable. I wanted to be a part of what was going on, regardless of the fear and apprehension I masked under my smile. I waded in, holding my inner-tube on my back, grinning at my female friends who were waiting for me, sat down, and let the river take me.

Not two minutes in, I realized there was going to be a problem. Instead of drifting toward the open waters at the middle of the river, my tube began heading toward a fallen tree jutting about twenty feet off the bank. I was moving fast and there was not way to stop it. Before I knew it, I hit the log and was sucked beneath it. My tube was ripped away from me and I found myself hanging onto the log with every ounce of strength my pre-pubescent arms could muster. I could hear the force of the water rushing past me like the sound of a bathtub filling while you’re lying in it as the water rises. I did not know what I was going to do, so I held on, struggled to pull myself out, and thought that maybe I would die that day.

I look back to that day and have a few good thoughts, but mostly remember that nobody rushed to my rescue, or even knew that I was dying under the water while they floated by. And it wasn’t just that day. I remember the other kids at the camp, how they didn’t talk to me, how alone I felt, how they all raised their hands during the evening services and cussed and talked about fooling around with girls everywhere else.

A lot of us look at the church and think we are the only ones stuck under a log, that we are alone in our struggles as the world, and the church, pass us by. I mean, if giving up Christianity means that I lose my community, a certain amount of family respect, and the support of friends, why would I want to give it up, right? As Evangelicals, this is what we ask of anyone converting from another religion, so why should we hold onto family ties as a reason not to leave the faith. And so we struggle alone.

I struggle everyday to make sense of the world. I wonder why I’m here as an insignificant speck on this planet, and don’t dare saying such thoughts out loud in church because I’m a guy who is supposed to have answers, right? I have been a Christian my whole life. I am supposed to feel significant, but most of the time I feel like a failure. I hate this. I hate how I don’t have answers to the hard questions

But the inner struggle goes beyond feeling, or not feeling, significant. I have grown up believing in everything from Noah’s Ark, Creationism, and the incarnate birth, but who is to say these things are actually real? Who is to say that Hebrew oral tradition was meant to pass down factual evidence rather than cultural virtues, which is at the core of every other oral tradition since our kind defeated the Neanderthals, right?

I look at stories of our culturally developed military and am dismayed at cases of women in the occupied corners of the world being raped and mistreated by our soldiers. But what about the Romans? They had such low respect for women and other marginalized groups. Who is to say that Mary didn’t make up the whole angel story to cover up the fact that she was brutally raped by a Roman soldier on her way home? And at the core of all these doubts: How do I really know that what I believe is true if I can’t feel it?

I need to believe in something I can hang onto; otherwise, what is the point of hanging onto this life, this charade. If these doubts are true, or could be true, why try? Why walk through my days, or lie in bed at night, and feel so incredibly and unconsolably alone? Why sacrifice personal happiness for eternal jubilation. And what the hell does that mean anyway? Everything I have ever heard about heaven sounds weird to me. I mean, why would I want to go on an Alaskan cruise when I could have the Caribbean party boat experience? Worshipping for eternity sounds as appealing to me as the senior discount at Denny’s, and I really don’t connect to the pitiful tales of weeping and laying down some silly crown. I’m not really into wearing crowns, so what does that matter to me?

Heaven is an interesting thing, and I am really kind of secretly struggling with the whole issue right now. When I was a kid there was a lady in our church who had had a “vision” of the golden city – I think I’ll call her “Sonia.” Sonia never hesitated to jump at the chance of sharing her angelic apparition with people she saw at church, especially visitors. Oh, as a pastor’s kid who prematurely figured out that numbers at church meant decent meals at home, I was so embarrassed by her strange, sobbing account. Mostly what I remember is that we all stood in robes shouting at Jesus, praises I think, at the top of our lungs without stopping, at which point she would demonstrate. The whole thing sounded weird to me and I wanted nothing to do with that Heaven. And then there were the youth conferences…

Youth speakers, as long as I can remember, seemed to evangelize church kids at these conferences we would go to with the tact of a used car salesman. It seemed like Heaven was one of those high-pressure time-share sales vacations! So many promises, lots of strong-arming. Their stories of Heaven sometimes included space travel or flying around with jet packs. The account seemed more like something out of the Hannah-Barbara playbook and less from the Bible. This sort of youthy faux-cool worked to convert some, but I don’t know where they are at today. But what if Heaven isn’t real?

Heaven: Don't miss it for the world!

If Heaven isn’t real, then what is the point of suffering? What is the point of “righteous living” and staying back home when my friends go out to party? I don’t know. And that not knowing, that doubt, scares the crap out of me sometimes. If I ever stopped believing, what would my life look like? I mean, after my family and friends adjusted to the new me, and I was no longer living a lie, who would I be? I would still be me, would still probably like Star Trek and editing videos, and am pretty sure my sense of humor would be intact. So…? Faith requires a step into the unknown, the absurd; and I have lost the appetite to chase after things I cannot see, cannot feel.

For this reason, I cannot let what people at church might think affect the decisions I make for my life: what I choose to believe, what I do with my life, and a myriad of other things associated. In the same way, the momentum of my early life in faith is not enough to prop me up when I’m tanking, on empty, ready to crash and burn. Hanging on to past experiences is not enough, and envisioning some mystical land plated with pure gold is just plain weird, not when I am concerned about my life today, right now. All of that almost feels like some sort of spiritualized escapism. I need something I can feel today, not a fairy tale of a better place where all our woes and worries will be gone. I wish it was just Heaven that felt so distant. At least then I wouldn’t feel like every other aspect of the faith was so…disjointed from the rest of my life.

When I think of all the time that I feel a good Christian should be spending in prayer and reading the Bible, it makes me feel really inadequate. I mean, prayer is good for some, but I don’t really connect that way. I feel like a heathen for thinking it, but I feel more at peace when I go for a walk or drive alone in the car at night, where my thoughts can wander freely. But does Jesus really answer me when I pray to him, or are those just my thoughts, something I contrived to comfort myself when I’m feeling down? The “burning in my bosom” that I felt a long time ago was just that – a long time ago – and I don’t feel it today. I’m not sure if I ever really felt it at all.

What if we were just set up to believe that some really good guy was more than even he claimed to be? I can see it happening more easily than I can sometimes see dude getting crucified, coming back to life. It’s almost more believable that he was an alien with special powers too complex to be understood by our less evolved brains. At least that makes sense!

During those long drives alone in my car at night, when I am left with the stillness of my own thoughts, the doubts come in, and like a good evangelical Christian I feel the urge to push them back, to ignore the unanswerable marks against my faith. But, it is in this dark night that the soul has free reign to connect, for once, with the true rhythm of the journey of faith. It is this “dark night of the soul,” first written of by Carmelite monk St. John of the Cross in the sixteenth century, that defines so much of our security in our own spiritual identity.

The Evangelical tradition has lost this core struggle, preferring to hang on to the feelings of the past over the pain of the present. But it is in this pain that God is revealed. The dark night of the soul has different degrees, but generally comes in as the excitement, the newness, of the faith begins to meet the reality of life. We are promised freedom from struggle, from want, from the past, but these very things creep their way in as we come down from the “high” of holiness.

Sometimes I feel like the church offers seekers more of a bait-and-switch scam than anything of true and lasting substance. I’m told that Jesus is going to be my best friend, but what I feel when life gets tough is that he is either a liar, or just an imaginary friend that was nice for a time but never meant to be with me forever. The dark night is a lonely place because so few are willing to admit that they struggle with doubt. But it is this struggle that defines the very core of our humanity. Placing eternity in the hearts of mortal men shouldn’t make sense.

In 2007, the private writings of Mother Theresa were made public. It soon came out that for almost fifty years Mother Theresa, who had devoted the entirety of her life to the poorest of the poor of Calcutta, went through almost fifty years of feeling that God had abandoned her, like her prayers were falling on deaf ears. It was not until the end of her life that breakthrough slowly began to occur. And this theme is common throughout Scripture.

I am certain that David questioned God on countless occasions, in fact we can read about it through the Psalms. Anointed as king at a young age only to be chased his whole life, considered a traitor, and suffering alone, cold, and hungry. Abraham and Sarah must have thought God a cruel jokester, promising them a child in their old age just to tease them. And how long did they go on before anything really happened? It’s easy for us to see things come together so quickly for them because it all happens with a couple turns of the page. Done! But my life is happening right now, and I can’t turn the page. I can’t even get to the end of the paragraph!

The dark night of the soul is not the handiwork of a merciless Creator who has nothing better than to play the role of an evil child burning ants with a magnifying glass for his sick pleasure. Nor is it contrived by some imaginary force projected from the human psyche, something that helps me get through a tough time, but not really meant for the rest of life. No. This wrestling with doubt is the best gift any believer in Christ can receive. Doubt is of the greatest of spiritual blessings. It purifies the soul, calls us to leave the carnality of religion, and embrace the essence of faith. And leaving behind the carnality of religion, the things I hang onto because I’m supposed to, or always have, is counter-cognitive.

When I was sucked under that log in the Green River, I connected with the terrifying fear that I might lose myself if things didn’t come together for me. Nobody else seemed to have trouble floating down the river, but there I was, caught up in a struggle to hang on and pull myself out. In the seconds I was submerged under the water, seconds which felt like an eternity to that dramatic thirteen-year-old mind you, I prayed to God for help. Somewhere in my head I heard this thing telling me that I needed to let go. “No thanks,” I thought to myself, but it persisted, and my continuing to hang on did not seem to be doing anything for me. So, I finally let go and in a matter of about two seconds I popped up on the other side of the log, without an inner-tube but able to breathe. So many of us are afraid to let go and embrace the chaos of those waters.

Letting go and embracing the dark nigh is anything but easy. It often involves a crisis of faith, a dipping into immorality, a struggle to believe in an archaic and seemingly-distant God. But, it defines our faith in a way we could never know. So many push away the doubts, preferring to skim the surface of Christianity rather than embracing the depths, because the depths have no easy answers, nothing to tell is this is why we struggle, or how things are going to work out. But for those who learn to let go of hanging on for the sake of others, or for the sake of past experiences and expectations, they discover a deeper, more genuine faith that cannot be shaken.

Sometimes I do hate being a Christian, because there are no easy answers. I so much want to feel God because I need something more than myself, but the goosebumps just don’t cut it for me anymore. I hate the faith in the same way an old woman hates her wrinkling and weakening body or how a male bee hates dying after he has sex for the first time in his life. I hate it in the way that it is a reality of nature that stands against the reality of my fallen, broken nature. I hate being a Christian because I hate being human, for we are nothing more than the sum of the pain and joy and sorrow and laughter of a few short and seemingly insignificant years.

I just as much hate Christianity as I hate watching the summer fade to autumn, day to night, or a loved one wither into old age. But this faith is as real to me as the trees, deeper than the stones that form the riverbed, for it is spoken in the mysteries of the universe that I still fail to fathom. It is. God is, and that is why I struggle. Eternity has been placed in the heart of this man, and it is a weight almost too great to carry, impossible to fathom, and just what he needs for hope today, strength tomorrow.